Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1028264
24 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 SEPTEMBER 2018 OPINION IF ever there was a moment when the ship called 'popu- lar narrative' could be seen smashing headlong into an iceberg called 'reality', it was when the police broke up a protest organised by Movi- ment Graffiti at the Planning Authority offices last Thurs- day. I'm assuming you've all watched the video, so I won't bother describing the event itself (other than to say it bore a conspicuous resemblance to around three or four similar scenarios – also involving the same NGO – that un- folded over the past couple of decades). No, what makes this umpteenth repetition of the same spectacle so significant is that it placed its finger square- ly on pretty much everything that makes Malta the uniquely bipolar place it is. Let's consider a few of the more typical reactions. At surface level, they can be neatly divided into (surprise, surprise) two diametrically opposed perspectives: those who applauded the activists and showed solidarity with what they describe – quite ac- curately – as a violent clamp- down on freedom of speech; and those who took mortal offence at the very idea that people might actually protest against the current glorious administration (slap-bang in the middle of this Golden Age of 'L-Aqwa Zmien', too). Inevitably, the latter per- spective takes the form of that predictable (and entirely hackneyed) question: 'Fejn kontu?' (Where were you?) Where were all these environ- mentalists/trouble-makers, these people ask, when the environment was being just as brutally raped over 25 years of Nationalist governments? Well, the short answer is: 'They were protesting.' Maybe it's because I've worked in newspapers for most of those 25 years, but unlike nearly everyone commenting on this latest incident, I happen to remember all those previous protests. They weren't just about the rape of the environ- ment, either. Graffiti also pro- tested against 'warships in the harbour' in 2009 (and around a dozen times before that)... only to be physically manhan- dled and dragged away by the same police force, in exactly the same way as last Thursday. They also protested against censorship under Lawrence Gonzi; and in both cases, the same Labour media that now alludes to them as 'trouble- makers' had vociferously sup- ported and encouraged them in their efforts. Just a few months ago, the same Moviment Graffiti led a public cavalcade to 'reclaim Manoel Island': even going as far as to physically tear down the barricades to take sym- bolic 'possession' of the place – a far more radical approach than they used last Thursday, even if the police response in the former case was... um... non-existent. No prizes for guessing why, either: back then, Graffiti enjoyed the support of Gzira's Labour mayor; and in any case, the decision to gift Manoel Island to speculative developers had originally been taken by a Nationalist administration, not a Labour one. So Graf- fiti's actions at the time were not, as they are today, a case of 'childish attention-seeking'. Even if the two protests were ultimately motivated by the exact same concern. This much, at least, should be clear to any level-headed observer. Technically it makes little difference whether public land is lost forever to build new petrol stations, or to build new 'state-of-the-art' residential enclaves. It's still loss of public land. And unlike both its newfound support- ers and detractors, Moviment Graffiti has been nothing if not spectacularly consistent on this one issue. It has a long and distinguished tradition of always making itself a pain in every government's arse... re- gardless which of two largely indistinguishable political parties happen to be in power at any given moment. This makes Graffiti some- thing of a rarity, in an NGO landscape that is otherwise dominated by thinly-disguised vehicles for partisan propa- ganda. And there are at least two reasons for its remarkable consistency, both of which are vitally important to under- stand exactly why we're in the state we are in. The first is that Moviment Graffiti actually possesses a political ethos of its own. You can agree or disagree with what they stand for all you like; but the one thing you can't realistically accuse Graffiti of is clambering onto other people's political band- wagons. They have their own bandwagon; and it is actu- ally the two political parties themselves that climb onto it from time to time (only when it suits their own purposes, naturally. When it doesn't, they will try and torpedo that bandwagon, as Labour is do- ing right now.) But it is the second reason that should really concern us all. If Moviment Graffiti applies the same yardstick to both parties, it is only because the two parties are equally guilty of exactly the same offences, time after time after time. Among other things, this forces us to question the other side of the public reaction to Thursday's protest: all those wavering, inconsistent politi- cal stooges who now openly identify with those activ- ists... turning them into what David Bowie once described as 'heroes just for one day'... when they themselves had heaped scorn on those same activists, for daring to protest under successive, 'benevolent' Nationalist administrations. What does that reveal about their own motivations? Do these people support Movi- ment Graffiti because they share a basic concern with rampant overdevelopment? Hardly. If that were the case, they'd have consistently sup- ported the same NGO every time they protested over that one issue... and not just today, when it might create a little useful ill-feeling towards the present administration. And this, ultimately, is what makes Thursday's protest so reveal- ing. It illustrates multiple reasons why the Nationalist and Labour Parties have so suc- cessfully morphed into such perfect replicas of each other, to the overwhelming detri- ment of Maltese democracy as a whole. Part of the reason has been visible to all and sundry for decades: for all their claims to be radically different in politics and outlook, both parties remain to this day entirely dependent on exactly the same industrial and com- mercial powerhouses for their own survival. When com- mercial interests collide with environmental issues – as they inevitably will – both parties will always capitulate to business interests, at an ever-increasing (and non-re- fundable) environmental cost. But you all knew this already. Meanwhile, there is a second, less obvious reason for the total and utter convergence between Labour and PN on practically all issues. Unlike Moviment Graffiti, which has a clear political identity of its own, the average Maltese political supporter has no such political centre of gravity, and neither knows nor cares what the two par- ties even represent. The only thing that has ever mattered to these people is that 'their side' wins; even if it results in exactly the same issues that they all pretend to care about when the shoe is on the other foot. And that is a dangerous thing, because politics, by definition, operates on the Raphael Vassallo [Moviment Graffitti] has a long and distinguished tradition of always making itself a pain in every government's arse... regardless which of two largely indistin- guishable political parties happen to be in power at any given moment Heroes just for one day